


a ghost hunters guide to loss & coping

by ficfucker



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Black Mirror AU, Character Death, Established Relationship, M/M, but he comes back sort of, dead!shane, oh no :((
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 22:07:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14066607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficfucker/pseuds/ficfucker
Summary: ryan misses shane more than anyone could ever imaginebut maybe shane isn't as far away as he thinks





	a ghost hunters guide to loss & coping

**Author's Note:**

> based on the black mirror ep Be Right Back

Ryan wears Shane’s favorite gray sweater to bed on accident one night after finding it in his clean laundry and on the anniversary of Shane being gone, it starts to become a sort of tradition. 

Every other part of Shane, the big parts of him, clothes and most of their framed pictures, some of his books on cryptids, journalism, history, a handful of nick-nacks; a little wooden bigfoot carving, a small pressed coin collection from his dad, postcards from various sites they had visited for Unsolved, were all packed into big plastic boxes and pushed into the back of Ryan’s closet. 

It is the third year now, the morning of, and Ryan is in bed, in Shane’s sweater. 

It is paralytic. 

Ryan is trapped within his body, comatose, from the mere thought of Shane, without a body. Hell, not even to that extent, just the thought of Shane (or rather, the absence of him), is enough to make Ryan curl into fetal position. 

  
  


Buzzfeed emails him. They don’t expect Ryan in the office, and allow him up to 3 days leave to, as he assumes, grieve his loss. 

There will probably be videos made, or someone more in charge of social media will post a picture of Shane with some kind, solemn caption. A day to honor him. 

A day for Ryan to reduce himself into an infant. 

A day of his Instagram being flooded with well wishes and sorrows, all of which Ryan doesn’t want to look at. 

  
  


It’s 10 am, and Ryan has finally managed to flop out of bed and force himself to shower. It feels like being in a tomb. 

He leaves the music off. He can’t even bring himself to be distracted. 

The more he focuses on the hurt, he figures, the faster it will be over. 

Ryan hears his phone chime off and he makes a mental note to check it when he gets out. It was a text, not something from Instagram or Twitter, so it was probably personal, a coworker or family member asking if he was doing okay. 

He sits on the floor of the shower, his head bowed to the water and eyes shut for much longer than his usual. 

When the water starts to turn cold, Ryan steps out, swings on a towel, and picks up his phone. 

It’s Keith. 

 

_ Keith Hamsberger : hey ry i know today is like super hard for you and all  _

_ Keith Hamsberger: i just wanted to shoot you a text and send my condolences along with everyone else at the office _

_ Keith Hamsberger: also i hope you don’t take this the wrong way but check the following link it really helped me with becky  _

  
  


Ryan remembers Becky. 

Christ, how couldn’t he? 

Keith was madly in love with her, smiled his big-mouthed smile every time he found the chance to talk about her at office (which was often). And Becky was a sweet girl, Ryan and Shane had gone on double dates with them before, posted silly group selfies to Instagram. 

And then a semi flipped on the highway and her and her car were crushed beneath that and the pavement for hours. She died on impact, a tiny relief from the news, but the scene was huge, tons of spectators, and Keith was never the same. 

Who could recover from a loss that sharp?

  
  
  


Ryan rereads the string of texts then, with his fingers shaking, presses the link with his thumb. 

  
  


The laptop has been stuck on a loading screen for what seems like way too long, but then again, Shane posted a lot on social media, so there is tons for the system to process. 

Ryan is chewing his bottom lip and a bloody nub of skin is starting to form. He texted Keith a quick thank you, but not much else. He didn’t want to invite him to talk more.

Ryan wants to be alone with… whatever this is. 

Suddenly, the screen flashes to bright white and it dissolves to a chat forum. 

Shane’s Instagram profile picture is in the top left corner with a green circle, stating Shane Madej is online. 

Tears well in Ryan’s eyes and he can feel his core shaking, this quivering coming from deep within him, and it feels like he can’t suck in enough air. He’s breathing pure cotton. 

  
  


_ Ryan Bergara: shane? _

 

_ Shane Madej is typing… Shane Madej is typing… _

 

_ Shane Madej: No, it’s Banjo McClintock _

  
  


Ryan chokes on a laugh, tears streaming down his face in thin parallel lines, clutching at the collar of Shane’s sweater with white knuckles. 

  
  


_ Ryan Bergara: this is so fuckin weird  _

 

_ Shane Madej: Don’t worry, dude, I’m not a ghost, just some A.I. shit _

 

_ Shane Madej: I mean maybe I am a ghost somewhere out there, but I won’t feed into that right now  _

 

_ Ryan Bergara: god youre an asshole even in the afterlife  _

 

_ Shane Madej: I’m just the way a computer made me, babe _

 

_ Ryan Bergara: i gotta take a breather this is too much  _

 

_ Shane Madej is typing… _

  
  


Ryan closes the laptop before Shane (“Shane”?) can finish his message and immediately, his hands are covering his face and he’s sobbing, a quiet, messy cry, all tears and snot, making a mess of his sweater sleeves. 

He’s torn between the wonderful flutter in his chest, the absolute joy of talking to Shane, the feeling that he is bathing in sunshine for the first time in threes, and the awful nagging of knowing that this is all an illusion; Shane is dead, has been, this is only a computer pretending to be Shane. 

But, God, is Ryan lonely. He could cling to  _ anyone _ similar to Shane. 

_ Anything _ similar to Shane. 

  
  
  


It’s the next morning and Ryan has downloaded the app version of the software, thinking maybe things would be a bit more down to earth if Ryan could text on his phone. Maybe he could come to terms with it. 

He sits at the kitchen table and hesitantly opens the chat. 

_ Ryan Bergara: morning  _

 

_ Shane Madej: Gone all night, Bergara? Didn’t even think to tuck me in? Rude. _

 

_ Ryan Bergara: right right i shouldve given my computer a big old kiss for you  _

 

_ Shane Madej is typing… Shane Madej is typing… _

 

_ Shane Madej has nicknamed you ghoulfriend (the short one) _

  
  


Ryan pauses, looking at the small glowing screen in his hands, and considers, for probably the third time this morning, what he is doing with his life. 

 

_ ghoulfriend (the short one): idk the settings on this thing  _

 

_ ghoulfriend (the short one): can i have my phone read off your texts so i can do the dishes and talk to you  _

 

_ Shane Madej: You’re in luck, baby, I can talk to you in my Human Voice _

 

_ Shane Madej: Upload videos of me and I’ll call you when I’m done updating  _

  
  


Ryan presses the little gear symbol in the top right corner and scrolls through the options, finally finding “Text to Voice” and selecting it. He uploads all of their Buzzfeed videos, hours and hours of footage, along with some voicemails Shane had left on Ryan’s Messenger whenever he didn’t pick up the phone. 

Compared to the average person, this is more than enough, Ryan thinks, a little amused. 

A gray bar appears on the screen and slowly fills with blue, with a percentage above it. 

Ryan knows this is going to take a while, so he sets his phone down on the table and does the dishes, his mind blank while he dunks his hands into the hot soapy water over and over, eyes unfocused. 

He’s drifting again. 

He had woken up, the ripe hour of 3 am, and vomited until his stomach was empty and he was heaving up burning globs of snot and stomach acid, sitting on the bathroom floor and quaking. Tears leaked out of his eyes without meaning to and evolved into sobbing. 3 years later and he was still as unhinged as the day he got the news. 

The phone rings and Ryan snaps out of his trance, squeaking the water off, scrambling to dry his hands before the call ends.

It’s Shane, his big dumb smile and name plastered over the whole screen. 

“Hello?” Ryan asks.

“Guess who.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading; don't forget kudos and comments !


End file.
